He let her cry it out.

With a voice thick with tears, she said haltingly, “So you’re asking why I stayed? How could I go? Really, in all good conscience – how? Leave without making sure things would turn out all right for them? I couldn’t do it … just couldn’t ….”

Jonah rubbed her thigh sympathetically, and then reached behind him for the bottle of mineral water she’d been drinking, which still sat on the coffee table.

He held the bottle by the neck, ready to give it to her when her face emerged from behind her hand.

“Did I tell you that dad says that whatever I’m doing out here is really just continuing “the family business” so he’s not surprised I agreed to stay behind, and remain involved.”

We raised you, Rian. So I know you can’t tell us what you’re doing out there, but we understand why you’ve decided to stay out there, using your knowledge to help, and serve your country, your fellow man, basically.

She finally dropped her hand, and after wiping her tears off with the back of a hand, she accepted the bottled water Jonah held out for her. She gently pulled her hand from his grip.

Jonah swatted the side of her leg gently. As strong as he was in everything he did, it always surprised Rian that Jonah could be so gentle and careful as he was now. “No, you haven’t told me what your dad … who it’s clear you hero-worship … told you. But that’s a good one …the family business … I guess that’s as good a term as any for what we’re doing. My guy’s family had people who served, way back when, so he gets why I agreed to join the team when Mike got in touch, even if I’d rejoined the investment bank I’d been working in.”

He paused, and then picked up another glass bottle of the mineral water, unscrewed the cap and took a swig.

“Even so, I had to work to make him understand why I’m still here. I’d hinted to him that we were heading home this week, and he’d prepared a kick-ass welcome home, I think. Huge shindig at his parent’s manse out in the Hamptons. When I hinted I wasn’t going to make it, yet, we was really, really upset, and, as you know, we had a “screaming fight” via text about me still being here.”